Microstory 2459: Savanna Land

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Right now, this is one of the least impressive domes on the planet. I guess I can’t say that. It’s not like I’ve seen every single other one. Then again, people have been making these kinds of statements forever, like when a food blog would rate the best restaurants in the country, as if they have any semblance of a comprehensive authority regarding anything close to what they’re claiming. All I mean is that there aren’t any animals here yet. For this one, I don’t think that they want to get by with lifelike robots. I think they want it to be really authentic, and that’s going to take some time. Still, it’s not called Savanna Animal Kingdom. They opened it, because it currently already exemplifies exactly what it says on the tin. There’s a ton of grass, patches of barren dirt, and very few trees. I didn’t see many other people while I was there, and the ones who did show up didn’t stay very long either, because we all saw the same thing. Potential. But not completion. The vehicles are ready, which is an interesting thing, but the real interesting part about that is how big they are. Back on Earth (before we stopped having to drive) roads had to be sort of standardized. It would have been ridiculous if French roads were 10 meters wide and Spanish roads were 50 meters wide. They developed organically, initially based on the size of people, then of horses, then horse-drawn carriages, and so on, and so forth. They got bigger, but you could still still see the natural origins. Even when they broke new ground, like I was saying, the cars were the size they were, and they weren’t going to make special cars for some hip, new region. I’m talking a lot about vehicles, because I can’t talk about the lions or the elephants yet. The point is, we’re starting from scratch here, and not limiting ourselves to tradition. Some of the vehicles are big, with giant observation bubbles which allow for 360 degree viewing all around. Man, it’ll be great in 15 or 20 years when this place is populated, and there are actually some cool things to see, but until then, we can literally only imagine.

Microstory 2160: Trust the Wizard

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I don’t have anything to say today. Stuff did happen, but I can’t tell you about it. I’m pretty honest with this blog, but I don’t reveal everything to you. For instance, I’ve never gotten graphic with all of my many illnesses. I don’t talk about what kind of porn I watch either. Lol, I’m kidding, I don’t watch porn, I’m celibate. Sexuality has no place in any universe. Gross, stop thinking about that, you heathens. Anyway, I’m still depressed, but I’m working on it, with my therapist, and my parole officer, and by occupying my time with work and community service. I still don’t think that I’ll ever be happy, but things have been much worse for me in the past, and are presently worse for others in the world. The point is that I have little to complain about. I still miss Cricket and Claire, but when you add it up, it hasn’t been that long. Anniversaries are significant in the bulkverse. I’m sure something good will happen exactly one year after my arrival. Oo, if this were a fictional story, we would call that foreshadowing, but this is all real, so what could I possibly know about the future? I’m not a wizard. Well, I do know some things about the future. I know that I’m going to go to jail tonight. That’s the future, maybe I am a wizard. Trust the wizard. Ugh, I need a break from this site. I’ll be back to you Monday. In the meantime, enjoy a couple of daily social media posts, and whatever else you have going on in your life besides me. I’m assuming that you have other interests, but I guess it’s possible that your entire existence revolves around me, and my life. There is a theory that only one person exists in the universe, and everyone else is just a figment of their imagination, or some kind of extension of their subconscious. I shudder to think. If that were true, every time I picked my nose in private, or watched porn, all of you have been aware of it. I guess in that case, you wouldn’t be real anyway, but it would still be weird. Stay out of my private life!

Microstory 2146: To Participate

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There are consequences to your actions, people. Never forget that. I’m not saying that I’m being punished here, but my website does get read by a number of people, including the jail’s personnel. Based on my weird last two installments, it has been suggested to me that I start to struggle more when I’m unable to have my usual weekly therapy session, for whatever reason. I don’t think it always matters so much what she and I discuss, just that I have time to talk to someone who has been trained to listen and try to understand others. I think that’s a fair assessment. Just looking back on my past posts, and reflecting on my recent life, it sounds about right that I go a little crazy sometimes. I think I was meant to have group sessions all along while I was in jail, but I sort of forgot about it, and the expectation is that I manage my schedule myself. No one is going to force me to talk to anyone about anything in particular. Some people are given more detailed sentences in this regard, but mine was purposefully vague. Even so, it’s a good idea, so I participated in group on Saturday. I didn’t really want to participate directly. In fact, I think maybe it should be expected that a newbie keep their mouth shut on their first day, and just listen to the veterans first. I don’t mean to imply that no one has anything worthy of being heard during their first session, just that it might foster a safer and more welcoming environment to not introduce people so shockingly suddenly to an established group. Give us time to acclimate, ya know?

Well, I was forced to talk, because as I’ve explained, I’m kind of famous. Some were not happy that I was there, and/or not happy about the developments on my website. Due to my belief that I’m a traveler from another universe, they think that I should be given stricter rules when it comes to my personal mental health journey. I’m obviously crazy, and need to be medicated, heavily therapized, and maybe locked up 24/7. I must say, I totally see where they’re coming from. If I’m so convinced that time travel is real, then a group session where I talk about how much I miss my dog—who is supposedly being taken care of by an alternate version of me—is probably not enough. It might be taking time away from people who have more grounded problems. If I were trying to work through what they perceive to be my delusions, that would be a different story, but since I’m holding firm to them, and the group leader is making no effort to change that, I imagine that that can get pretty annoying. That’s one reason why I didn’t want to talk the first time, and why I don’t know if I ever want to talk at all. I am from another world, and I’m never going to claim otherwise, because it would be a lie, and that would be worse. I hope that my fellow patients can learn to accept that, as I make an effort to accept their drug addictions and domestic violence issues, which I’ve never had a problem with personally. For now, I have no reason to believe that I won’t be able to have my regular private session with my own therapist this coming Wednesday, so hopefully I can get back on track then. Oh, and one more thing, for this Sunday’s social media post, I wrote this cryptic question about a snake eating its own tail in real life. There’s no hidden meaning behind that. I just didn’t have anything real to say, so I just kind of randomly started typing words, and that’s what came out. If you interpreted it as a puzzle, or thought experiment, or something, don’t worry about it anymore. I just don’t like to skip days. Maybe I should talk to my therapist about that.

Microstory 2145: Fresh Fake Baby Brains

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Wow, yesterday was some roof stoof, wasn’t it? I guess I need to explain a bit more. What you need to understand about the bulkverse is that some universes can stand on their own, while others need some kind of oversight. It’s not that every world that you can imagine can exist, but a lot of them can, and the more reasonable ones tend to be stronger. For instance, there’s a movie where I’m from where two Earths orbit each other so closely that you can actually take an elevator up from one to the other, and depending on which one you were born on, gravity remains the same for you, so if you travel to the other one, you will fall up towards your homeworld if you’re not careful. It’s super ridiculous, and practically impossible, and the universe where that story took place only lasted for one hour and fifty-four minutes before it imploded. Basically, the more normal things are, the safer you are there. That sucks for them, yeah? Well, unfortunately, it also sucks for you, because even though your planet doesn’t violate any reasonable laws of physics, it is weird. It’s too dependent upon the historical context of a different universe. I couldn’t tell you which one that was; maybe mine, but either way, yours too lacks stability. You’ve obviously lasted a lot longer than two hours, but that doesn’t mean you’ll last forever. It’s entirely possible that literally none of you existed until I entered the brane. My alternate self back on my homeworld may have conjured you up in that moment, and automatically implanted memories in your fresh fake baby brains, which make you believe that you’ve been around for years, even generations, or even for billions of years. That doesn’t make it so, but it happens. It happens all the time. It happens in dreams. I know it’s scary to think that this might be the case, but as I said in my last post, that doesn’t make you any less real. It’s all relative, and all in how you frame it. I long ago made peace with the possibility that I was also conjured in this way, and that I could one day blink out of existence. It didn’t change how I lived my life, because I couldn’t do anything to change it, so if you look at it that way, you’ll be all right. If you do happen to blink out of existence soon, you won’t be able to experience any emotions on the matter. You won’t experience anything at all. So you might as well just keep going. Me, I’m different, because I can leave. And I must.

Microstory 1149: Téa Stendahl

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Literally in another life, Téa Stendahl was a tailor. She was originally born a man named Ed Bolton in the late 1700s. Years after the turn of the century, Ed jumped forward exactly one year, and there he remained for precisely three seconds, at which point he jumped forward again. He spent three minutes here, until it happened yet again. He continued to do this unwilling, both increasing the number of years he passed over, and the amount of time he spent upon his return. He would skip years according to the Fibonacci sequence, and spend three somethings (minutes, hours, days, etc.) there, before moving on. In the mid-20th century, he died in a car wreck, but he was an old man by then, and felt he had lived a decent life. He had eventually accepted his new pattern, and helped a lot of people along the way. He would never see is best friends again anyway, as they were traveling through time in the opposite direction, so it was all right that it was finally over. Except it wasn’t. Téa Stendahl was born a normal child, into a lovely family. She enjoyed fashion and sewing, but had no clue that this was not the first life she had experienced. As she grew up, though, she started recalling events that never could have happened to her. Her parents figured she just had a grand imagination, but they still sought help from a child psychologist. He was unable to understand what was happening with her either, but she eventually no longer needed his help. As time went on, she remembered more and more of her former life—or perhaps, more accurately, her former lives. While most jumps allowed him to retain all his memories, there was one thing that never stayed the same.

Bolton stopped going by his original name, instead adopting a new variation each time he jumped. In different time periods, he was called Ned, Teddy, Eddie, Edward, and Theodore. He could always remember the names he used to use, but was unable to revert to them at will. The people in charge of his time traveling were messing with his brain. They must have been messing with the minds of Téa’s new parents too, because her newest name couldn’t have been a coincidence. As the powers that be would have it, Téa was able to see her friends again. After they too were reincarnated, they suddenly jumped in the opposite direction, and met back up with her near the middle of the 21st century. They were surprised to find their companion with a new gender assignment, but not bothered by it. Téa felt that she was a woman, and it was unclear whether the powers that be transformed her on purpose, or if at least part of the reincarnation process was out of their hands, and subject to nature’s whims. Either way, she was happy. She later returned to her roots as a tailor, opening a clothing shop on an island on another planet, in another galaxy. There were others like the three of them, who were sent to various time periods, completing various missions. They weren’t always wearing the right clothing to blend in with the natives, so she was there to provide them with authentic clothes and accessories. They couldn’t just look like they should, like one might find on the set of a historical film. They needed to utilize materials and dye that could be found in any given time. Sometimes, her customers wouldn’t remember that they had ever gone to The Hub at all, instead believing they blinked, and were just suddenly wearing new clothes in the past or future. She even did this for the past version of herself, which was an interesting opportunity to gain rare perspective.

Microstory 796: Bower

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A c-brane, which is a particular class of universe, is only as large as it needs to be in order to accommodate its inhabitants. This is the cause of so much strife in the Maramon’s brane, for they were never meant to travel beyond their solar system, but something went wrong. Capitalizing on this idea, however, of an extremely limited scope universe, a group of some very powerful people decided to build their own universe. Now, normally, natural universes have near unlimited scope. They’re created by some kind of cosmological expansion event, like a big bang, and grow larger from there, as time progresses. C-branes, on the other hand, are created by the force of creativity. They manifest through imagination or dreams, and more often than not collapse upon their own instability. If no one continues believing in them, then they won’t exist. In the history of the bulkverse, which is the collective dimensional substructure all universes, no one has gotten together to make one from scratch, but these people managed to figure it out. Deemed The Bower House, it was designed to confine the most notoriously dangerous people from all over the multiverse. Most universes, including standard natural ones, have incredibly spectacular physical laws, which can be exploited to accomplish fantastical goals. In some, death can be subverted through transference to new substrates. In some, objects can be moved from great distances, through telekinesis. Some have slower aging, or faster-than-light travel, or even demons. The Bower House has none of these things. An individual transferred to this prison universe from their own will find themselves completely without whatever special abilities, or technologies, they were able to use before. There is no electricity, and no superpowers, and death is final. The idea here was to have a place to incarcerate the worst criminals in the bulkverse, who have used some unfair advantage against others. It is the smallest c-brane ever, with its sky being a low-hanging firmament, rather than light waving through empty space. It is impossible to escape from the Bower House, because there is nowhere to go, and no technology capable of creating a way out. Yet somehow, one woman found a way, and then all hell broke loose.

Counselor

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So these aren’t going as well as I’d hoped. I started writing short fiction not really knowing how short is short, and how short is too short. The early ones are the shortest, but grew longer the more I wrote, and I ended up settling into a range of about 300 to 500 words. I know that length isn’t supposed to be all that important, but look at one next to the other, and the story with only 150 words just doesn’t look right on the screen. It looks like I didn’t have much to say. And that’s always true. The length is always a decent indicator of how great of a hold I have on the material. But as you may have noticed, these are sort of danglers. I like my series to be grouped in nice and large chunks. I’ve been thinking of the Headlines series a lot more than these Personalities, and have even written a few of them already, so they are just naturally bound to be better.

As I’ve said, I identify most with the Counselor personality type, but it’s not what you think. Real Counselors derive satisfaction out of helping others. It’s never done that for me, though. Community service, holding doors open for people, making sure to accommodate everyone around me are just things that I do. You see, the real world doesn’t interest me all that much, or rather it’s hard for me to be too invested in it. The imaginary mind palace I’ve created for myself is no less vivid than my desk that’s in front of me right now. I can always and no matter what, about as close to literally as possible, escape to another world. These can have been created by others, or by me. I can jump into Fillory, take a Nexus to Ceres, then stroll down the block in Wayward Pines, before relaxing on Tribulation Island. When I’m here, in the real world, I ultimately don’t need all that much. So when someone wants something out life, the only thing I need to get past before helping them with that is my physical indolence. Real Counselors really want to help, and they get something out of that.

The Counselor in my story is the same way. He’s a diplomat from a recently deveiled planet. For reference, a veiled planet is one that exists without any knowledge or witting interaction with people from elsewhere. My characters operate under what are called The Priorities. Priority Two is like the Prime Directive in the Star Trek franchise...except not...because it’s the exact opposite. When you go out into space and find a veiled culture, there’s this unwritten rule that you share with them everything you know. Allowing war, disease, and other horrors found in underdeveloped civilizations when you have the power to stop it is considered by most people who contribute positively to society to be immoral. The Counselor knows very little about interplanetary relations, and galactic conflicts. He is not officially a member of the team, because he literally didn’t sign up for this, but everyone accepts him just the same. His life is in constant danger for his frequent attempts to have civil audience with a threat, and everyone is always having to protect him. As he becomes more jaded, however, he eventually learns to protect himself.

The Counselor likes learning about other people, and tries to figure out their motivations so that he can make everyone as happy as possible. He knows intellectually that you often can’t give someone what they feel they need without taking something away from someone else, but he doesn’t want to. He always tries to look for the solution that pleases everyone, and even though the team’s enemies treat him as an enemy as well, they have a level of respect for him, and tend to give him the benefit of the doubt. Though he does learn to adopt certain military values, and even develops some violent tendencies, he never lets go of his diplomatic leanings. At one time, he becomes a powerful force in the galaxy as the leading negotiator. There’s no telling how many conflicts he’s ended or prevented, along with his own team of counselors.

Microstory 413: Floor 30 (Part 1)

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I sit back and relax. No one can find me here, and the completely open window provides an excellent source of circulation so that no one can smell the smoke. I’m gonna need to find somewhere else once they figure out what the hell they want to do with this floor. I think it was really important to someone that they have exactly forty-two stories, but they didn’t have that many departments. My job itself is fine, it’s no big deal, I don’t stress over it. I just hate the people. Some days, I can’t even. They have no idea what it’s like in the real world. These “suits” which is a term I coined, follow each other off the cliff like dumb lemmings. Baa, lemmings, baa. I’m no lemming, I’ll tell ya that much. I’m more like this grasshopper...because it hops, right? Actually, that might be a cockroach. You know what I mean, though. Ya know, but I got it all figured out. This whole company is like a bus. So...people get on the bus. Right? You with me? But then they get off the bus. See? Okay, let me try again. Say you’re eating a burrito. I don’t like burritos, but that’s the first thing I thought of. You’re eating a burrito, and it’s in your mouth, but what happens to it after that? Does anyone know? Or do you lemmings just baa around and accept that you’re supposed to eat the burrito? Has anyone ever asked what if you didn’t eat the burrito? You follow me, right? Because you’re just a figment of my imagination, so I don’t have to say anything out loud, but you’ll still get it. Yeah, you get it. So the thing is that I don’t even know why I agreed to work in this godforsaken lemming factory. Ask my uncle and he’ll tell you he got it for me so that I straighten up and put my college degree that I earned from the other lemming factory to good use. College was the most ridiculous time in my life. You spend two years following other lemmings from classroom to classroom, and what do you get for it? You get an education that the government has decided on. Some rich white old dude in a musty offi

Microstory 383: Self-assurance

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Self-awareness

I previously discussed this topic to some degree in another step, but that was limited in scope, so I think there’s room for more. I’m just going to expand on what I’ve already said about self-confidence, maybe this time talking about myself a little less. What I never went into before is what happens when self-assurance goes wrong, which would also be continuing the subject of self-awareness. Some people are pretty sure of themselves, and are incapable of recognizing how other people see them. Not every celebrity on the cover of a tabloid is a bad person, but there clearly are those out there who have no real talent. In order to maintain their relevance, they regularly do something ridiculous so people pay attention to them. On the surface, this does sound like a kind of talent, but really, how many of those “celebrities” you think come up with those tricks themselves? Self-assurance too easily leads to self-aggrandizement. If not put in check, someone with too much confidence in themselves can start to lose vital perspective. How many times have you heard someone, celebrity or not, make a stupid remark about the way things are. Donald Trump’s primary voting population is known for having a warped idea of how things work. Libertarians build their whole socio-political belief system upon their own ignorance of how people different than them live and view the world. I’m in this weird spot where I see better ways of doing things, but I also get hopelessly confused by the simple things. This I must work on by nurturing my curiosity, and ignoring my presumptions. Always be able to question if you truly understanding something, or if you’re missing important information. Every problem the world has ever encountered can be traced to either selfishness or a lack of data. Find and commit to something that makes you happy, but also keep yourself challenged. Imagine greatness and be ambitious, but don’t hurt people on your way to success. Recognize and appreciate your faults. They make you who you are, but you don’t have to be defined by them. Train to shed yourself of weaknesses, but never believe them to be gone entirely. Know yourself, trust your past, and keep improving. Rest assured, you can’t lose if you never stop trying.

Accomplishment

Microstory 378: Imagination

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Life Extension

When I was in elementary school, I made up this story about how I was an alien. I remember my mother and sister sitting me down for an intervention to make sure I understood that I was not really from another planet. What’s funny is that I found out decades later that I’m autistic, which is often described as the feeling of being normal, but just having been born on the wrong planet. In the meantime, however, I had to discover that the stories I made up were the result of my imagination, which would be better manifested in written form. I have other flawed character traits that I’ve, sometimes subconsciously, rerouted so that they would help me write stories. Just about everything I do is designed to fuel my need to write fiction. Despite being an extremely quiet introvert, I like to try new things. I would actually try a hell of a lot more if I had money to throw around, like skydiving, archery, or futures studies. Every experience helps me understand how the real word works so that I can manipulate those truths and reapply them to my fictional worlds. My imagination is my greatest skill, and I’ve even rerouted that to help me deal with real life issues. Imagination is responsible for literally every single invention that has ever been invented ever. There was a need, and there was at least one person realizing that need who could see the solution when most people couldn’t. Too heavy? Put it on wheels. Too dark? Light a candle. Too sick? Cure smallpox. For someone like me, imagination is all that matters. Imagination tells me what happened to my characters, and how they dealt with it. For progress, however, imagination is only half the battle. True advancement comes from the ability to transform imagination into practical application, and not always by the same person. Not every imagined solution comes from someone in a position to actually do something about it. If you have an idea—even if you think someone smarter than you must have already either come to the same conclusion, or debunked it—find a way to get the word out. Hell, you might just have a vital component to the cure for cancer. Never stop dreaming.

Complexity